Exploring the cognitive computing revolution is the subject of the 2017 Turing and Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) lecture. Speaker Dr Guruduth Banavar hopes his talk, entitled ‘Beneficial AI for the Advancement of Humankind’, will inspire the next generation of IT professionals.

Dr Banavar who is VP and Chief Science Officer, Cognitive Computing, IBM Research, will provide an overview of cognitive computing, the technology breakthroughs that are enabling this trend, practical applications for the real-world, and ethical considerations guiding the development and deployment of the technology.

Dr Banavar says: “In the last decade, the availability of massive amounts of new data, the development of new machine learning technologies, and the availability of scalable computing infrastructure, have given rise to a new class of computing systems. These ‘Cognitive Systems’ learn from data, reason from models, and interact naturally with us, to perform complex tasks better than either humans or machines can do by themselves. These tasks range from answering questions conversationally to extracting knowledge for discovering insights to evaluating options for difficult decisions. These cognitive systems are designed to create new partnerships between people and machines to augment and scale human expertise in every industry, from healthcare to financial services to education.”

Dr Banavar will deliver four lectures across the UK and will be speaking in London, Cardiff, Dublin and Belfast.

Dates and venues:

About the speaker:

Dr Guruduth Banavar is vice president and chief science officer for cognitive computing at IBM Research. He is responsible for advancing the next generation of cognitive technologies and solutions with IBM's global scientific ecosystem, including academia, government agencies and other partners. Most recently, he led the team responsible for creating new AI technologies and systems in the family of IBM Watson, designed to augment human expertise in all industries.

Previously, as chief technology officer for IBM's Smarter Cities initiative, Dr Banavar designed and implemented big data and analytics systems to help make cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and New York, more liveable and sustainable. Prior to that, he was director of IBM Research in India, where he and his team received a presidential award for improving technology access with the Spoken Web project.

Across his career, Dr Banavar and his team have delivered a range of products and solutions for IBM and its clients. He has also served on task forces such as NY Governor Cuomo’s commission to improve resilience to natural disasters. He holds more than 25 patents and has published extensively, with his work featured in media outlets around the world.